Washington Think Tank with W.: What album should be re-imagined?

Freshly returned from my successful campaign in D.C., I have come back to the Toilet reinvigorated and armed with a wide array of pointy questions with which to probe your brain sphincters. Washington is in desperate need of all that crap in your heads, so gobble down these mental jalapenos and drop a thought-deuce in the comments for me. Your country needs it.

Today’s Question: What album should be re-imagined?

All glory to my pal 365 Days of Horror for this question. At his behest, I went ahead and checked out Monster Magnet‘s Milking the Stars, a Re-Imagining of 2013’s stellar Last Patrol. This visit back to familiar territory was much more than a remaster or a subtle update. Songs were entirely re-worked, production was altered to give a more vintage aesthetic, and a new driving and thrumming instrumental track was penned to kick-start the whole effort. Even the track order was rearranged. So this brings us to today’s question. If you could have a band revisit and rework any item in their back-catalogue, what would it be? I’ve listed two examples below.

Exhibit A: Metallica – And Justice for All

A lot of fervent discussions have taken place regarding the production on this album, and for good reason. The And Justice for Jason remixes that you can find on Youtube hint at what might have been. However, I’d like to hear what the band could have really done with these songs had Cliff Burton stayed onboard. Would a little of the fat have been trimmed? Would the spastic song structures and excellent riffs have been even more chaotic? Imagine the title track being a bit shorter with even more breakneck shifts. Imagine a thicker, more chthonic take on “Harvester of Sorrow.” This album is one of my favorite metal records of all time, but it’s hard not to imagine what might have been.

Exhibit B: Nevermore – Nevermore

There’s nothing wrong with Nevermore’s debut per se, but the whole effort often comes across as unpolished albeit earnest. I’d love to hear the more mature band that wrote This Godless Endeavor revisit such classics as “What Tomorrow Knows” and the “Sanity Assassin.” Plus, I wouldn’t call all of the tracks here essential, so maybe some of the weaker songs could have been reinterpreted with the sinister doomsaying and somber moroseness that would emerge on later efforts.

All in all, we’ll never really see how these things could have turned out. Still, it’s fun to imagine what might have been. So now it’s your turn. Let me know what you think in the comments below!